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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

COAST Members Looking to Waste More City Money to Benefit Finney

"Attorney" Chris Finney, along with token "residents" of the City of Cincinnati Mark Miller and Tom Brinkman, want to waste more of the Taxpayer's money by subsidizing the "career" of Finney. They've sent a letter to the City Solicitor as the first step in what likely will be a frivolous lawsuit that has no basis in law. Finney stands to benefit from this if the lawsuit goes on and he can collect legal fees in a settlement or, if he gets an insane judge, an actual positive ruling.

This action is the exectution of the threat issued by Council Member Chris Smitherman and nothing more than is a total waste of time. It is based on a single word "all" and as I previously blogged, the "all" clause "arguement put forth in the finney letter was fully satisfied when Council's legislative power was exercised with the passing of the rules of council. All Legisilative powers included giving others in the government the power to carryout the charter. Let me quote my own blog post linked above:

Section 5a of Article II of the City Charter states "The Council shall organize itself and conduct its business as it deems appropriate...." That's what they did with a 5-3 vote (one member was absent.)

Section 2 of Article III of the City Charter state "The Mayor shall preside over all meetings of the council, but shall not have a vote on the council."

I am far from a legal scholar, but any educated person who understands the core basis of Representative Democracy and Divided Government understands that Finney has no case. They can dislike the rules of Council and they can voice their dislike, but unless they get a majority of votes, they have to learn to deal with losing.

Side Note: Originally Smitherman stated he was going to be the having Finney send the letter if Council didn't cave to his threats. Why is this letter written with Miller and Brinkman as the complainants and not Smitherman? Where's Chris Smitherman's name on the letter? He is obviously, based on his original grandstanding incident, in cahoots with this cabal, but why the lack of his name? Is there a misrepresentation here? Is there a conflict? Is there any possible dereliction of duty as a Member of City Council? Should this be investigated by the authorites?